Episode 26
Summary The party are assaulted while trying to rest inside the hidden temple of Lycerus. They survive the attack by the skin of their teeth and decide to flee the temple and come back later - retreating and taking a long rest some distance away from the temple. When they return, they are greeted by a yuan-ti pureblood named Kharss who gives them some info and asks them to kill Ss'kharr, a priestess of Lycerus who is "inches from realizing godhood". He lets them into the temple, they cut their way through some more yuan-ti and make their way through several puzzles - ending before a large door... Recap * Session begins with everyone attempting to rest. Clancy looks around and perceives something, except he doesn't tell the party where the sound is located. He pulls his revolver and aims it at one of the holes but as a result of not saying anything, only Clancy isn't surprised by the ambush. * Several more yuan-ti assault the party, including the one who was harmed before.Some of them are still in snake form and have to take some time to turn back. * Keegan goes down. One of the yuan-ti casts a spell, causing a majority of the party to fall asleep except for Rogg and Rhekki. Keegan is able to get back up and begins to commence waking everyone up. For a while, it looks like the fight we should've expected to happen will be a TPK. Only by the grace of yuan-ti missing Jaime is the party capable of coming back around and turning the battle into their favor. * The battle ends with Clancy throwing an egg at one of the yuan-ti. * Everyone comes to the conclusion that it's very very dangerous inside and not worth it to stick around. Between Warren and Rogg they're able to open the door and Clancy tries to find somewhere that they can sleep for the night. At last, the party is able to take a long rest. * In the morning everyone is stiff and cold from the previous night's rain, but otherwise fine. They begin to head off back to the temple and pass the obelisk where there's a figure standing. He reveals himself to be a yuan-ti pureblood, who gives them a plea to kill a priestess who's close to godhood. Because of this, others are scared about challenging her. The party agrees that they'll attempt but opening the door would be appreciated. * Kharss opens the door by saying the password and another fight is underway. This one, by comparison, goes a lot better than the previous two. Instead of just yuan-ti, there are also snake swarms. They make relatively quick work of these enemies and move on, going in the opposite direction from where they headed last time away from the nursery. * The path instead of having stairs, only slopes down. Obviously not made for people with legs, the party attempts to do it anyway. Everyone succeeds except for Rogg, who falls on his face. Clay slides down and does a backflip before colliding into Rogg because he's extra. * Before them next is a dusty chamber with closed stone doors at the end. The doors depict a gaunt humanoid figure with a crown on its head, but instead of having fingers has many snakes that reach down towards the floor. In front of the doors is a font built into a plinth of stone, clearly made for people to bleed in. Clancy insists on Clay to do it, which Clay eventually does. The doors don't move, however. * Regarding the size of the bowl, they realize that they need a bigger body. They go and retrieve a corpse, then drains the corpse of its remaining blood. The door opens. * The room beyond is plain and circular, differing only by the life sized sculpture of a snake around the door frame. Its face dips down from where it stands with its mouth open. Off to the side is a table with a small box, the inside contents appear to be small silver spikes of some kind. Keegan notices that the head of the snake sways in a strange, predatory manner when she draws close and doesn't do anything... Until she puts the spikes into its mouth. Once this occurs, the snake's head strikes forward and gives Keegan piercings on either side of her bottom lip. Free snakebite piercing! Anyway, the next door opens. * The third room is also circular in nature with a depiction of a snake on the floor, its pieces shuffled around. The party makes quick work of solving this puzzle and the session ends with the next door opening.